


different as can be

by intertwiningwords



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Opposites Attract
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningwords/pseuds/intertwiningwords
Summary: richie and stan don't seem like they'd be best friends. but you couldn't be more wrong.





	different as can be

**Author's Note:**

> yes, the title is from a very potter musical, shut up lol
> 
> i love these boys & their friendship. hope you enjoy!!

Richie Tozier and Stan Uris were about as opposite as two people could get.

Richie was loud, bright, and messy. He loved laughing and joking and filled out his notes in class with colored pens until his math homework looked like a rainbow. He had scabbed knees and a gap in his teeth and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. His glasses had been broken so many times that they were held together with a strip of black electrical tape. He was a ball of energy with a foul, fast-talking mouth.

Stan was quieter, more reserved, and certainly more organized. He needed things to be straight and symmetrical and neat. You wouldn’t find a wrinkle on his shirt or a scrape on his skin usually, and he didn’t try to stand out. He just kept to himself. He was soft and curly-haired and sweet, only spoke when he had something relevant to say, and when he knew what he was saying was right.

How they became best friends was still a mystery.

They were in second grade, both friendless, and in the same class. Richie was quieter back then, but still as jittery and messy. Stan was a little less uptight back then, but still organized and quiet. Funny how the outcasts always seem to find each other, sitting beside each other at lunch because there’s nobody else to sit with, and conversations strikes.

“What’s that thing you wear on your head?” Richie asked, blunt and curious as ever.

“It’s a kippah,” Stan replied in a matter-of-fact tone. 

“A what?”

“A kippah.”

“Oh...Why do you wear it?”

Stan shrugged. Despite his father being a rabbi, Stan wasn’t quite sure of the exact reason. “It’s a Jewish thing.”

“Oh.”

Every day they flocked back to their little corner and talked, sometimes about how much they hated their teacher or why Richie’s glasses were always taped or what holidays Stan’s family celebrated.

They got older, and soon came stuttering Bill Denbrough and hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak. Stan and Bill clicked, because they were both quiet and a little shy and didn’t talk much outside of their little circle of friends. Richie and Eddie clicked because they shared witty banter and teased each other.

But Stan and Richie were still the closest.

It wasn’t Bill that Stan went to when he started questioning his sexuality. It was Richie, who for once in his life shut the fuck up and just listened, and was perfectly understanding and sweet. And when Richie started questioning the same thing, he went to Stan.

When Richie’s parents ignored the bruises on his face after taking a beating from Bowers and his gang, he went to Stan’s house and spent the night because he couldn’t stand being somewhere that he felt so unwanted. Stan had hugged him tightly as he cried.

Behind closed doors, Stan laughed until he cried at Richie’s jokes, and then in public pretended he didn’t find the other boy hilarious just to piss him off. It was like an inside joke of theirs, and Richie was always trying to find a way to break that facade and prove to the other losers that Stan loved his jokes.

Even when the sweet Ben Hanscom, beautiful Beverly Marsh, and bright Mike Hanlon joined them, Stan and Richie always went back to each other.

Richie got close with Beverly, smoking cigarettes together and going to rock concerts. Stan got close with Mike, going on walks together and Stan teaching Mike about birdwatching.

But when Richie’s parents forgot his birthday, Stan was the first one to greet him with a smile and a “happy birthday, Trashmouth”. And when Stan’s bar mitzvah rolled around, Richie was the first one to arrive and congratulate him with a signature goofy grin.

Stan was the one to convince Richie (and Beverly, alongside him) to quit smoking. “Those things will kill you,” he said seriously. Richie had sensed the sadness in his voice when he said it.

“Don’t worry about me, Stan the Man,” he replied jokingly. “I got lungs of steel, unlike Eds. No silly cigarette is gonna take me out.”

“I do worry about you,” was what Stan said in response.

By the next week, Richie had gone cold-turkey and quit.

Regardless of the friends that joined their little group, Richie and Stan were the original losers, and they would always be the closest. Even after Stan and Bill had their first kiss in Bill’s car when they were seventeen and when Richie and Eddie had  _ their _ first kiss two weeks later in Eddie’s bedroom. It had been Richie who convinced Stan to make a move, and vice versa, after all.

They were as different as two people could be, but they were best friends until the very end.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!! feedback is always appreciated!! xx  
> follow my tumblr if ya want" intertwiningwords.tumblr.com


End file.
